Haut les coeurs!

Solveig Anspach

 

Dealing with some of the more sober realities of life - relationships, parenthood, serious illness - Solveig Anspach's second fiction feature is a life-affirming study of mankind's inner strength. The lead character, Emma, is expecting her first child when she learns that she has breast cancer.

The doctor who diagnoses the disease tells Emma that she must terminate the pregnancy, because the course of treatment will be too dangerous for the child.

Her lover, Simon, persuades her to get a second opinion from Dr Morin, who tells her the treatment will be safe. Emma's strength returns, and this time she's fighting for two.

The part of Anna was written especially with Viard in mind. "It was necessary to play Anna as someone lively and funny," explains Icelandic-born Anspach, "a force of nature of whom one could say, 'She's the last person in the world who could be ill." And it's very much a reflection of Anspach's interest in documentary (largely her forte since her debut in 1988) that such realism is vital. "My characters are not heroes," she insists. "They don't have the choice they simply have to fight." Steve Grayson